


A Fatal Attraction

by ultraviolence



Category: Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers / Mafia, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, F/M, idek what is this even
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultraviolence/pseuds/ultraviolence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karou and Akiva met for the first time, in the dead of the night, in the midst of the woods, when they were dumping dead bodies, respectively. AU, oneshot. Based on a prompt in Tumblr. Surprisingly fluffy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Fatal Attraction

**Author's Note:**

> Karou is Brimstone's protege in this AU. She doesn't live with him, to avoid suspicion, but she helps him with errands, as in the original 'verse, including *coughs* dumping dead bodies. I leave it to your imagination as to what business Brimstone is actually running, or what the Seraph Empire is in this 'verse (prolly an organised transnational mafia with a fire fetish). And Akiva is still a derp, no matter what 'verse you put him in. The prompt is [here](http://angstkiva.tumblr.com/post/110446999854/imagineyuorotp-imagine-your-otp-meeting-each). 
> 
> Comments, suggestions, questions and critiques welcome! xx

The moon was barely there when she trudged her way through the woods. It was waning, and obscured by clouds. Brimstone had been right, this is indeed the night to get things done. By _things_ , he meant the bloody business he’s in, where _bloody_ wasn’t necessarily a slang or a metaphor, and the body she’s dragging behind her was exactly that, a _body_. Back when she’d only started to run errands for him, she asked him why things are the way things are, but he’d never given her a single answer. In the end, she gave up and stopped asking questions.

The body had been that of a small, slight woman in her mid-thirties. Despite being stronger than she looks (Brimstone didn’t train her for nothing), not to mention the amount of trust Brimstone placed in her, she’s still but a girl, and he’d assigned her the smaller, lighter corpses to dispose of. The larger, heavier ones had been Twiga’s task. Sometimes they collaborated; he drove her to the woods and she helped him heaved his burden, but tonight she was alone. Issa had sent her away with kisses and a mouthful full of her signature cookies, and the taste of Yasri’s herbal tea still lingered in her mouth. Karou tried to shook the warm memories off; it had been a cold autumn night, and she shivered lightly despite her scarf (not the one Issa has knitted for her, unfortunately, since its colour matches the colour of her hair and as a general rule, it’s best to blend in with the night and don’t attract any attention) and the layers she’d been wearing. She stopped for one short moment to adjust her scarf and her coat, before resuming her trek through the woods.

She knows this part of the woods intimately, like the back of her hand, and she knows her mission directive (if you could call it that) just as well. Get in, get rid the body, don’t leave any trace, get out, don’t attract any attention. Of course, Brimstone had scowled at her when she dyed her hair blue, and told her that it wouldn’t do any good, but she kept it anyway. She was rather certain of her ability to stay out of other people’s sight when she’s running errands for him.

The woods were deserted, too, as it should, at this time of night, and only the song of the wind (and the night-sounds of the woods) kept her company. She was humming under breath, lightly, a song that had caught her fancy this morning on the radio. She almost reached her intended destination when she saw a glint of light at some distance away from her current position. She did not intend to stop ( _get in, get rid of the body, get out, don’t attract any attention, don’t engage strange lights or sounds_ , her mind told her), but for some unfathomable reason, she stopped and stared at the light. A couple of seconds passed, and the blue-haired girl wasn’t quite certain what to do.

She toyed with the idea of UFO sightings for a bit, or even angels, but quickly shook it off. She doesn’t quite believe in such things anymore, not when a man almost killed her during one of her errands. She still had the scars underneath her ribs to remind her of the lethal encounter. She had, however, now, an almost morbid fascination with the burning light, the way moths do when they burned to their death from flying too close to the fire. It was a fatal attraction, she knows. The light could have been anything, and if it had been, say, a campfire, then she was doomed ( _but whoever camped out in this cold a weather?,_ she wondered). She could kill a man, but if there was several, and they caught her red-handed, then she’s as good as dead.

She cannot, however, just leave the light be as her rational mind told her to. Karou took a cautious step forward in the direction of the beckoning light, steadying both her foot and her breathing. She tells herself, mentally, that it’s going to be alright, and that she’s just going to take a peek, to satisfy her curiosity. And besides, the light could have been _anything_. She had her twin knives concealed in her person, in the event of self-defense.

A step turned into two, and two steps turned into a quick but vigilant trek towards the direction of the light. The light was burning weakly at first, then grows stronger and stronger the closer she seemed to get. Before long, the foliage receded behind her, and she realised that she was now standing at a small clearing in the middle of the woods. 

And she wasn’t alone.

There was a boy, several years older than her, standing not far from her in the clearing, near the source of the light. The shadows of the trees on his back gave him a strange and twisted outline of wings, dark as the moonless night, punctuated by the flicker of flames. He was alert and ready, as if somehow expecting her presence, and when his eye catches hers, it reflected the colour of the dancing, devouring flames.

Karou felt the strangest itch of longing, punctuated by something fluttering in her stomach, and the desire to fetch her sketchbook so that she may immortalise him forever on paper. At the same time, her flight-or-fight instinct kicked in, and the alarm in her head went haywire.

“Who are you?” He turned to her then, sparks dancing in his eyes ( _the fire’s found a home in him, the fire’s a part of him_ , she somehow thought).

“I-“ She croaked, suddenly feeling light, her knees wobbly, voice stuck in her throat. She knew she was supposed to turn and run, or knife him before he knifed her first, but for reasons unknown to her, beyond the sudden lightheadedness, she can’t. “I was just…passing by.” She willed her courage to return to her, and her voice. ( _It wasn’t fear wasn’t fear wasn’t fear_ , she knew.)

“Passing by?” His flame eyes glinted dangerously, and only then she realised the smell of charred flesh. “At this time of night?” He took a step closer, every movement deliberate, like a panther stalking his prey. But Karou was no prey. “Alone?”

_A girl wasn’t supposed to be here_ , she could almost hear it, mockingly, in his voice. She kept her gaze fixed at him, still and steadfast. The body starts to weigh her down, but she doesn’t care. She’s got a more important business to take care of at the moment. “Yeah.” She countered, shifting the weight of the body slightly, bracing herself for a fight if it comes down to it. “Do you have any problems with that? You wasn’t supposed to be here, either, _at this time of night, alone_.”

Something flickered in his unearthly eyes. Annoyance, perhaps, she fancied, or calculation. He was weighing his advantage against her, his strength against hers. Surprisingly, after a few moments of tense silence, he visibly relaxed. “What’s that you’re carrying?” He asked, almost casually. _Almost_.

Karou didn’t let her guard down. “It’s none of your business,” she told him, shifting the body’s weight again on her shoulder. “I think I should be on my way now.” _I’ll forget this encounter ever happened if you forget about it_ , was the implicit promise she was offering to him between the lines of her words and her gaze.

“Oh, but not so fast.” He took another step, ready to intercept her. Karou’s body stiffened. She could drop the dead weight from her shoulder and whip out her twin knives at a moment’s notice. “You’ve seen…my business.” She saw the familiar, daggerlike glint again, and only then she also realised that despite the sparks dancing on his eyes, the rest of his disturbingly, almost inhumanly beautiful face looked about as dead as the body she was carrying, in the figurative sense of the word. She shuddered at the juxtaposition, taking a step back.

“If you want to fight, you only need to ask. I’m feeling quite generous tonight.” She grins at him, savagely, darkly, dropping the dead weight she was carrying and assuming a defensive stance. She won’t be going down without a fight. Brimstone had taught her that, and so much more. And she would carry his secrets with her to the grave if need be.

He looked quite startled at her incitement, stopping dead, eyes flickering with uncertainty for a moment. “No,” He finally said after several moments of silence, in a startlingly soft manner that astonished her. “No, I don’t want to fight you. I just…am not certain what to make of _you_.”

She’s not quite sure what to make of that, either. She resumed her defensive stance for a short while, before dropping it altogether. She didn’t want to let her guard down, but somehow her gut feeling told her that he posed no more threat to her. Whether or not she’s right has yet to be proven, and she’s still ready to take out her knives if she’s proven to be wrong. But for now, she’s going to follow her gut.

“You don’t have to make anything out of me,” she said, letting her hands drop to her sides. “I’ll be going now, if you don’t mind. I’ll forget this ever happened, and I suggest you’d do the same.”

She started to heave the body she’s going to dispose and turn away to leave, but he called out after her. “Wait,” he called, and she turned slightly to face him. The fire has fairly died down at the moment, and in the half-shadow, he looked like a part of the woods, like something that doesn’t quite belonged in this world. “I didn’t get your name.”

She wanted to laugh at that, laugh at his naivety, laugh at hers for listening to him in the first place. She gave him just that anyway, with a lopsided smile, the faint light of the moon illuminating her azure hair and her pale figure. “Karou,” she revealed. “But you better forget it.”

“Karou,” He repeated, breathless, as if her name sucked the air out of him, with a sense of wonder and amazement. It was like her name was an uncharted island, and he’d finally found her after a lifelong, thought to be fruitless, search. She found herself wondering _why_ , and she felt the peculiar fluttering in her stomach again. “I’m Akiva.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she responded, giving him more of her lopsided smile. “Though we start off at the wrong foot. And I can’t promise you that I mean it, either, considering our circumstances. Also,” she paused for a moment, “I really need to be on my way now.”

“Can I have your number?” He seemed to hesitate for a bit, but regained the courage to press on. “Maybe have some coffee sometimes, hang out for a bit.” Then he seemed to notice the dying embers near him, and the ashes that used to be _someone_. If he were abashed, he didn’t show it. “Um…this isn’t what it looks like. Sort of. I promise I’m not going to hurt you." 

Her smile grows a little bit wider, a little more enigmatic. Karou knows better, but she felt inclined to accept Akiva’s invitation, though she can restrain herself. “Maybe, if we meet again.” And then, after a deliberate pause: “Not in the middle of the woods at night again, hopefully. Now, if you’d excuse me, I have a job to do.”

She felt the slightest tinge of regret and an opportunity spurned, and she knows that he must disappointed too, judging by the lack of response, but as she turned and walked away, smile fading, she can’t help but thinking how lively his face had been, when she told him her name.

_Maybe next time, maybe they’ll meet again_ , she thought to herself, carrying her hope with her, keeping it safe. She hummed the song she’d been humming earlier, and gets back on track. Tonight, she’ll call Brimstone and report to him, and then she’ll ask for Issa, and she’ll told her about the beautiful boy with fire in his eyes that she’d met, once upon a dream.


End file.
